Thursday, June 2, 2016

MAHABALIPURAM VISIT

Wednesday 25th May 2016

The previous night we arrived at Srinivasan (s/o Sundaresan's) quarters at DAE TownShip, Kalpakkam, The next day planned to visit nearby Mahabalipuram (25Kms). They hired a innova van for all of us to go (i.e., Sundaresan, wife Prema, son Srinivasan, his wife Bhuvana, and their son Rakesh and we two),

The weather was hot and we reached there by 11am and the first place to visit was "Shore Temple"
which has thousands of sculptures for glory of Lord Shiva. It includes many reliefs including one 100ft long 45ft high carved out of granite.

Mahabalipuram is a town in Kancheepuram District in TamilaNadu, around 60 Km from city of Chennai. By 7th century, it was a port city of South Indian Dynasty of the Pallavas. Ancient Indian traders who went to countries of SouthEast Asia sailed from the seaport of MahabaliPuram.

It has a group of sancturies which was carved out of rocks along the coromandel coast in 7th & 8th Centuries. "Rathas" temples in the form of chariots, "Mandapas" (cave sancturies) and giant open-air reliefs such as the famous Descent of Ganges. The city was mostly developed by Pallava King NarasimhaVarman and his successor RajaSimhavarman in 7th century AD.

The Modern city of MahabaliPuram was established by BritishRaj in 1827.

There is also a light house, where visitors can climb up the narrow spiral steps to the top th have the panoramic view of the beach , the city and the surroundings.

The weather was hot, we were all tired by 2pm and after lunch in a hotel returned back to DAE township.